Spoilers made it out like Kaidou was a complete fraud and he was cowardly and underhanded.

Turns out, he was basically acting like the WG back at Marineford when they turned the island into an ambush death-trap vs the WB pirates using strategy and tactics.

Trick Oden into a pledge of peace for 5 years making him into a fool...lel hey Akainu went and got Squardo turn on WB during the heat of battle

Use a split-second distraction to land a decisive blow? Kizaru and Aokiji say "Hi y'all" since that's how they got the better of Marco and Jozu respectively. This also leads to the implication that Kaidou and Oden were very close in power, so close that exactly a split-second was all it needed to decide the outcome either way.

Before people jump down my throat, no this isn't a criticism of the Marines or the Admirals. War is war. Just pointing out that what Kaidou did, was not necessarily the scummiest thing ever in this manga.

As for the actual confrontation. I was slightly disappointed. As I was by the last chapter. It's obvious that Oda has in his mind a series of vignettes of powerful evocative imagery that he's been dying to put into his story. The 'dancing foolish warrior' based on the leader of the 49 Ronin who at one point does something similar to make the enemy think he's harmless for about a year or so - chapter 969.

Here the snapshot that matters is that of a warrior beheading or in this case slicing open a giant dragon ( call-back to Ryuma and Zoro at PH). The problem is, in order to reach this point Oda sometimes uses the road less-travelled. This fight feels disjointed, even more so because Oda is intent on hiding as much as he can the abilities of the Beast Pirates. Why for example have King and Queen in silhouette? just seems silly. Never mind them, we don't even get to see the Scabbards fight properly. Kin cuts fire? yeah let's not show that. Raizou using ninja arts? yeah lets not show that. Just personal gripes.

Still, this Kaidou is not the same as the one in chapter 795. Either Oda is retconning him into something else, or Kaidou twenty years ago wasn't as suicidal as he is depicted in current times. We even get a mini flashback from Hawkins on that infamous leap of death - turns out Kaidou and Apoo planned it all out. So? has Oda retconned Kaidou's suicidal tendencies (perhaps editorial nudged him since the topic is pretty sensitive in Japan). It would be hard to justify Luffy or the story killing off a suicidal man - that would be a reward, not punishment and paint his depression and suicide as a good thing lol.

1- Oda wants to end Wano reasonably early. Perhaps by chapter 1000. Shwoing all the power-ups Luffy, Zoro and the others got and now giving us Kaidou being vulnerable and nowhere near his previous hype is to prepare readers for his relatively swift defeat in the next 30+ chapters

2- It's all a bluff. All the above plus showing Kaidou as vulnerable is to trick readers into thinking Luffy and co. got this in the bag and will coast to a relatively 'easy' victory. Especially since they are carrying the will of righteous vengeance to right the injustice done to Oden and Wano at large. Paralleling the whole march to Onigashima in the present with their tragic march in the past. But this time, the march will end with a different outcome.

But, what if this is exactly what Oda wants everyone to think before he pulls the rug out from under everyone?

Spoilers made it out like Kaidou was a complete fraud and he was cowardly and underhanded.

Turns out, he was basically acting like the WG back at Marineford when they turned the island into an ambush death-trap vs the WB pirates using strategy and tactics.

Trick Oden into a pledge of peace for 5 years making him into a fool...lel hey Akainu went and got Squardo turn on WB during the heat of battle

Use a split-second distraction to land a decisive blow? Kizaru and Aokiji say "Hi y'all" since that's how they got the better of Marco and Jozu respectively. This also leads to the implication that Kaidou and Oden were very close in power, so close that exactly a split-second was all it needed to decide the outcome either way.

Before people jump down my throat, no this isn't a criticism of the Marines or the Admirals. War is war. Just pointing out that what Kaidou did, was not necessarily the scummiest thing ever in this manga.

As for the actual confrontation. I was slightly disappointed. As I was by the last chapter. It's obvious that Oda has in his mind a series of vignettes of powerful evocative imagery that he's been dying to put into his story. The 'dancing foolish warrior' based on the leader of the 49 Ronin who at one point does something similar to make the enemy think he's harmless for about a year or so - chapter 969.

Here the snapshot that matters is that of a warrior beheading or in this case slicing open a giant dragon ( call-back to Ryuma and Zoro at PH). The problem is, in order to reach this point Oda sometimes uses the road less-travelled. This fight feels disjointed, even more so because Oda is intent on hiding as much as he can the abilities of the Beast Pirates. Why for example have King and Queen in silhouette? just seems silly. Never mind them, we don't even get to see the Scabbards fight properly. Kin cuts fire? yeah let's not show that. Raizou using ninja arts? yeah lets not show that. Just personal gripes.

Still, this Kaidou is not the same as the one in chapter 795. Either Oda is retconning him into something else, or Kaidou twenty years ago wasn't as suicidal as he is depicted in current times. We even get a mini flashback from Hawkins on that infamous leap of death - turns out Kaidou and Apoo planned it all out. So? has Oda retconned Kaidou's suicidal tendencies (perhaps editorial nudged him since the topic is pretty sensitive in Japan). It would be hard to justify Luffy or the story killing off a suicidal man - that would be a reward, not punishment and paint his depression and suicide as a good thing lol.

I can think of 2 reasons:

1- Oda wants to end Wano reasonably early. Perhaps by chapter 1000. Shwoing all the power-ups Luffy, Zoro and the others got and now giving us Kaidou being vulnerable and nowhere near his previous hype is to prepare readers for his relatively swift defeat in the next 30+ chapters

2- It's all a bluff. All the above plus showing Kaidou as vulnerable is to trick readers into thinking Luffy and co. got this in the bag and will coast to a relatively 'easy' victory. Especially since they are carrying the will of righteous vengeance to right the injustice done to Oden and Wano at large. Paralleling the whole march to Onigashima in the present with their tragic march in the past. But this time, the march will end with a different outcome.

But, what if this is exactly what Oda wants everyone to think before he pulls the rug out from under everyone?

Btw Kaido said they were short on men 5 years ago (think I missed the part of "he lost most of his army bc of moria's attack") and now they fought Oden and the scabbards with 1000 men which was probably all they had at that time
Now they are 30k and there is still who says Kaido didn't grow in 20 years...

Btw Kaido said they were short on men 5 years ago (think I missed the part of "he lost most of his army bc of moria's attack") and now they fought Oden and the scabbards with 1000 men which was probably all they got at that time
Now they are 30k and there is still who says Kaido didn't grow in 20 years...

Find that hard to believe. Kaidou stagnated for 20 years while everyone else either grew stronger or weaker? nahhh

Besides in-universe no-one wpould be hyping Kaidou as the current strongest living thing if he's around the same level he was back then. Big Mom, BB, even the Marines wouldn't be as impressed. But then again, fans love to play favourites :rolleyes:

Find that hard to believe. Kaidou stagnated for 20 years while everyone else either grew stronger or weaker? nahhh

Besides in-universe no-one wpould be hyping Kaidou as the current strongest living thing if he's around the same level he was back then. Big Mom, BB, even the Marines wouldn't be as impressed. But then again, fans love to play favourites :rolleyes:

Ye like Luffy fights and becomes 5/10 time stronger every fight Akainu fights Aokiji and suddenly is super op post TS
While Kaido goes 1 v rest of the world trying to kill himself(Take his Ls obviously) made of suicide his favorite hobby but yea "there is no sign of him becoming stronger" pff the only thing that rly put him down in his life was the bottle.....

Ye like Luffy fights and becomes 5/10 time stronger every fight Akainu fights Aokiji and suddenly is super op post TS
While Kaido goes 1 v rest of the world trying to kill himself(Take his Ls obviously) made of suicide his favorite hobby but yea "there is no sign of him becoming stronger" pff the only thing that rly put him down in his life was the bottle.....

It rankles that we see Kaidou at his worst (well one of his all-time worst) before we ever saw him at his best. Him one-shotting Luffy was to me, a given. Any Yonkou would have done fairly well against that Luffy. Oda didn't show us Kaidou taking hits from fellow Yonkous and just shrugging it off, or being executed and walking away. Why couldn't we see Big Mom use Spear of Elbaf on him one time and he just gets pushed back but is unscratched? That would have been clear portrayal and not just narrator or character hype. The impact of seeing Oden cutting him up after we saw that would have been earth-shattering

Oda talks about Kaidou's hype but doesn't show it. Instead we see him getting cut first. So now some think that all that hype was fake and Kaidou didn't really grow any stronger and it was all clever PR.

Let's hope so he might decide to show us the time travel for idk the 2/3rd time...cuz the scabbards escaped or set free if I'm right so we might get an extra chapter with all the run run to the Oden castle and the flower capital

It rankles that we see Kaidou at his worst (well one of his all-time worst) before we ever saw him at his best. Him one-shotting Luffy was to me, a given. Any Yonkou would have done fairly well against that Luffy. Oda didn't show us Kaidou taking hits from fellow Yonkous and just shrugging it off, or being executed and walking away. Why couldn't we see Big Mom use Spear of Elbaf on him one time and he just gets pushed back but is unscratched? That would have been clear portrayal and not just narrator or character hype. The impact of seeing Oden cutting him up after we saw that would have been earth-shattering

Oda talks about Kaidou's hype but doesn't show it. Instead we see him getting cut first. So now some think that all that hype was fake and Kaidou didn't really grow any stronger and it was all clever PR.

I wouldn't say that this is Kaido at his worst xD I mean from the spoilers the situation seemed quite bad but the chapter actually changes a lot of things.

SoiilersOden and Kaidou are evenly matched with both covered in wounds.
ChapterThey don't even have an actual fight Oden uses his attack and do "the only scar Kaido got in his life till the present something not even the Navy other Yonkos and the 40 death sentences managed to do" wonder how cough Enma cough" gets distracted by the Momo thing and Kaido one shots him

SpoilersOden tries to save momo and thus lets his guard down, which results in him taking the full brunt of Kaidou's Raimei Hakke.
ChapterKaido didn't used a named attack just a basic hit (unless I missed something)

SpoilersMost of Kaido's army lost in battle with Moria
ChapterNo mention of that so unless it's a translation error (but it's an important detail) BP were just not big enough to take on the whole Wano's samurai at that time (something even the Navy is careful about)

I don't see how this chapter downplays Kaido it's like saying that the future Pirate King is trash bc in the past he had a hard time against Doflamingo while now he can just fodderize him

Let's just wait the War and they'll all join the BP fanclub.....

Post automatically merged: Jan 31, 2020

And if Kaido used a Trick/Strategy to win how can that make him a bad villain if that's what a villain is supposed to do previously they were all meh Kaido is just a plain villain he just swings his bat and that's it now we see a more strategic side of him and is suddenly more trash we knew BP were like this since Zou....if Kaido had gass weapons he would have used them if it would have saved him some time